The Defiant One

Saturday, October 20

I watched a play this weekend at the Manoel Theatre. It was opening night and the stalls were packed. Yet again, there was an astoundingly low number of attendees under the age of 35. Maybe two dozen in total, three at most; surely less than one in ten people. I could not have felt younger in the waiting room for a prostate exam.

I got the same impression when I watched Arsenic and Old Lace a few months ago. I put that one down to it being an age-old comedy, but this time round the play was Calendar Girls - terrific, by the way. It is based on a movie that is not even ten years old. It might be about middle-aged housewives, but it raked in nearly $100 million worldwide and has a 6.8/10 rating on the imdb website from 9455 votes, 35% of which are from members who are less than 30 years old. Though younger people are more computer savvy, I do not believe these demographics are skewed to that extent.

I am aware that the crowd at St. James Cavalier tends to be somewhat younger, and that the Christmas pantomimes are a hit with all age groups. Nevertheless, in general, do people really acquire a taste for theatre when they grow old? Or is it a case of that theatre? And if so, what is wrong with the Manoel?

Saturday, April 14

The Maltese people have a knack when it comes to turning everything political into a lowest-level-possible, gossipy debate. I gather this week it is the turn of the controversial documentary about Dom Mintoff. Let me chime in.

From 700BC up to 1974AD Malta was ruled by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Spanish, Knights of St John, French, and finally the British. We were slaves of one kind or another for centuries on end. Mintoff is the man who led Malta into becoming a republic. His is the name that went down in history for doing that. We did gain independence before that in 1964, but we still had a Governor General exercising executive authority for the Queen who was still our Head of State. As a geo-political achievement, becoming a republic after 27 centuries is way more important than Malta joining the European Union.

Regardless of how much of a bastard he became in his declining years, it will be Mintoff's name that will be remembered internationally. Was the legacy of George Washington tarnished because black slaves were being whipped into picking cotton during his era? The factual horror-stories of the 80s will become less and less relevant. It will not be a documentary or a book that changes this.

Thursday, March 8

March of this year will go down in history as the month in which the average Joe discovered that brutal war crimes have been committed in Africa for decades and that the atrocities continue to this very day. The old news finally became known to the masses thanks to YouTube of all things. It is well known that videos with kids or kittens have a tendency to go viral. There are no cats in the video posted on the 5th of March, but there are thousands of Ugandan children who were either killed, raped, or forced to enlist as soldiers in Joseph Kony's rebel army. The video was viewed 62 million times in the first four days.

How did the people not hear about all this sooner? Let us put things into perspective.

5 and a 1/2 million people were murdered between 1998 and 2007 in the Congo where mass public rape is used as a weapon of war to break the will of the people. This barely gets a footnote in the mainstream newspapers, if that.

While the Pol Pot regime was busy killing Cambodians in the 1970s, Indonesia invaded East Timor and murdered tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians. You have not heard about the latter because Indonesia had the USA's blessing, but you do know about the former because Pol Pot was a communist, and the mainstream media wanted to further the USA's anti-communism agenda.

15 out of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 were Saudis – that is almost 80%. None were from Iraq. None were from Afghanistan either, though Afghanistan did shelter some Al Qaeda members. Both countries were invaded. Not only did Saudi Arabia not get attacked, but the mainstream media never mentions it in the same sentence as 9/11. It does not tell us that Bin Laden’s operation was mostly bankrolled by Saudis. Why? Because that is where the US Government buys its oil from.

US Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul wants to get the US out of all wars and abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, a private institution that is practically above the law. He is given next to no media coverage.

You can see the obvious trend. The mainstream media reports only what it is told to, in the manner it is told to, in order to shape our thoughts into what the powers that be deem fit.

Never has this been clearer than now. In the last few years, while Kony was not getting any air time on TV, we have been bombarded incessantly by the propaganda machine of the USA, the EU, and Israel to brainwash us into thinking that Iran poses a military threat. Iranians have every right to invest in and develop nuclear technology, just like the countries that are now threatening it with a pre-emptive military strike did decades ago. Israel is the only country in the Middle East to have nuclear warheads and wants things to stay that way. I know this, you know this, but the Governments have not yet given up on manufacturing our consent, as the great Noam Chomsky would say.

Picking up the Kony story is one thing. Pushing it as much as newspapers and TV news networks have been this week is another, especially after virtual silence for years on end. Again, put things in perspective: News24, a South African online news resource reported that, "Olara Otunnu, a former UN diplomat who worked on children and armed conflict, has long accused the [US backed] Ugandan government of committing genocide in northern Uganda as it pursued Kony... Ugandan officials say [Kony's] LRA - with some 200 core fighters at most - is weakened and is merely trying to survive." That is 200 core fighters, a far cry from 30,000 as the famed YouTube video claims. Kony was at his most active over 10 years ago, so why is the media pushing for an invasion now? Is it to interfere with Uganda's trading with China?

In a totalitarian regime a country sends its men to war because the powers that be want to. The same exact thing happens in our representative democracies, only the propaganda of deceit brings most of the population on board. We feel we are part of the decision-making process when we are really just cheerleaders. Boy, are we happy we do not have to experience a totalitarian government and the oppressive control that comes with it. So much so that we fail to see the huge amount of control present in our representative democracies. It is simply of a different kind: thought control.

When the mainstream media is not busy indoctrinating us, it easily distracts the masses from what is really going on with sports, trash TV, popcorn movies, and so on. Panis et circenses, as Caesar would say. Bread and circuses while the rulers keep their agendas rolling.

Information on what is truly going on all over the world is available from alternative media and public reports, but one has to go looking for it. The gross majority of people lack the time, the energy, and the commitment to do so. This is precisely why the government propaganda model has proven to be so successful.

People are very slowly but surely getting smarter and wising up to this. Unfortunately, after they do so their anger quickly turns into a feeling of helplessness and nothing is done about it. The Governments are still not taking any chances though, instituting laws like the NDAA and the Patriot Act in the US to be able to legally use force on the people should they ever decide to take action.

Tuesday, February 28

In 1950 the world population was less than 3 billion. Now it exceeds 7 billion. The human race continues to grow exponentially because of economic and scientific progress. Resource-wise this is a problem in itself; that we are intent on raping the planet to make a buck does not help one bit.

Every few years top scientists from all over the world reconvene to discuss the usage of resources and evaluate the sustainability of future demand. This is always followed by the introduction of new regulations and taxes as deterrents for over-usage. Let me rephrase that, individuals and small companies get taxed to become more efficient, while massive companies like Halliburton and oil corporations are allowed to pillage the Earth undisturbed. Scientists met in the late 1990s, in the early 2000s, in the early 2010s. Rules and taxes were introduced, but according to them the expiry date of the human race remained 2050. Hence, this method is not having the desired effect with regards to self-preservation, but it works wonders to fill the governments' pockets.

The system is way too corrupt to be fixed in time. 'Too many' people are born and it takes them 'too long' to croak. I am afraid the powers that be would be willing to change that. I would rather not think of why governments have authorized sodium fluoride in toothpaste, aspartame in diet sodas, ammonia in meat, and so on given that they weaken the immune system and give cancer - which by the way went up 3000% in the last few decades.

Life as we know it will change drastically. We will wake up to this when the world runs out of crude oil, which cannot be more than a few years from now since we are well past peak oil extraction. But will it happen before we can completely rely on other forms of energy, preferably clean and renewable? Vehicles will not run on oil, but how will they be produced if it currently takes 1000+ gallons of oil to build one car and 8 gallons to produce a single tyre out of natural rubber? And have we forgotten that plastic is an oil extract? When was the last time you were in a car, or a room for that matter, totally devoid of plastic or plastic paint? No more crude oil, no more plastic - back to wood, metal, and glass.

Next on the list will be water. Oil barons like T. Boone Pickens have already turned to buying up land encompassing fresh water lakes to make a pretty penny off thy fellow man once the shortage worsens.

There are solutions, but they will not be implemented until every dollar is milked out of the cash cows owned by the puppet-masters. If we were a better race, it would not be the beginning of the end but, alas.

Monday, February 20

Back in the 1970s, when it was clear that computers would soon help almost everyone in their life at work, most people wrongly assumed employers and corporations were happy with the profit they were making at the time, and that the end of the five-day-work-week was nigh. It was their rude awakening into the capitalist world.

This is where you would expect me to discuss capitalism. Instead, I am going to embark on a rant and point out that 35 years ago people wanted a way out of work. People might have been naive and optimistic as hell, but society had not made them swallow the employment pill with a smile. They did not suffer from today's politically correct bullshit about needing a job that fulfills your life purpose and yadda-yadda-yadda. Naturally, one tries to milk every drop of satisfaction out of work, but it is still and will remain work. Make no mistake: you are a robot. We all are, but let us not be happy about it! The most common deathbed confession is still: I wish I had not worked so hard.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, bores me quicker than someone who goes into great length to explain what a great job he has doing something which sounds totally pedestrian. Chances are that you are not a firefighter who runs into buildings when everyone else is running out. If you are, kudos. If you are not: it is a JOB, do you not get it? They call it wage slavery - you rent yourself out in order to survive. You are a couple of steps up from a street-whore, congrats. Still, if you are doing it for money, it is not fun, honey.

Recently both of my parents retired almost simultaneously - that way they can enjoy being pensioners together. Not a single person I told sounded enthusiastic. No, you see, society's fangs are sunk in waaay too deep. What I get, ad nauseum, is "Have they gotten bored yet without work to do?" Lemme see, doing as you please as opposed to working 8 hours a day, whiling your life away? Oooh, that is a tough one.

I will take boredom every time. The boredom that comes with travelling, reading new books, going out in the countryside, listening to music, meeting people, snapping photos, watching movies you have not seen before, etc. That is the boredom that comes with freedom.

Sunday, February 12

Those who pull society's strings do not care about white people, asian people, black people, and what not. The only colour they care about is dollar-green. As Tony Montana said, "You gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power."

The puppet-masters want to keep the people stupid. It is not people they need, but robots who can keep their money machines rolling. Unfortunately, people are more than happy to be told what to do and what to think. To form an opinion one must gather information, process it, to then make up his own mind. This takes time and people tend to be too busy or too lazy to bother – they find it much easier to repeat someone else's opinion. Thus, due to human nature, society's mediatic power starts with a favourable handicap. When we are too young to know better we are told what society thinks is right and what society thinks is wrong and we follow suit. We are told that cursing is not etiquette, that religion is necessary to become a decent person, that being gay is a mental illness, that sunbathing topless is shockingly rude; the list is endless. By the time our formative years are over we have already formed opinions by forgoing any thought process whatsoever. This can only mean that society has a Thought Police that is alive and well; it is simply better camouflaged than you would expect it to be. You will not get Nineteen Eighty-Four's O'Brien raise his hand and ask, "If the Party says that it is not four but five, then how many?" No, they will indoctrinate you when you are young and watch you turn into a sheep as you grow older.

When simple brainwashing methods do not suffice, individuals can be tweaked into being more obedient. LSD was prescribed by doctors who spoke highly of it until it was made illegal. Zero people are killed each year by marijuana, while prescription drugs (including Xanax, Oxycontin, and Vicodin) kill 150,000 each year in the US alone - yet guess which one of them was deemed dangerous and made illegal? The obvious pattern shows that drugs that open your mind = ILLEGAL, whereas drugs that numb you down and dumb you down and make you easier to control = LEGAL. If the powers that be interfere with how we think and what we do about trivial matters, how far would they go for issues that are much closer to their pockets?

The whole nine yards is the correct answer. Josef Goebbels used to say, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” The USA had to get into WWI to protect J.P. Morgan's investments, but its people were not having any of it, so the RMS Lusitania was sent on a suicide voyage. When the USA wanted to join WWII, it did its best to piss off Japan, then left Pearl Harbor unguarded. When the USA wanted to take over a bunch of oil, lithium, and opium rich middle-eastern countries and also wanted its citizens to swallow the Patriot Act, it made NORAD stand down when half a dozen passenger jets were hijacked. After every single one of these events, the population was quick to flip-flop and join the Government's bandwagon, just like the German citizens were quick to support the Nazi Party when the Nazis themselves torched their own Reichstag building.

It is plain to see that the fragility of the human mind was studied in depth to be later abused of. What we are now left with is a society that is closer to a robot factory than anything else. At this point one has to ask: why care about society anymore?

One need not be particularly bright to understand that people all over the world are lied to by their Governments on a daily basis. If the USA’s Secretary of State lets herself be broadcast on television showing how upset she is that people got sick of hearing the mainstream media's lies, it must truly mean that more and more people are becoming immune to thought control. Just recently SOPA was mostly nipped in the bud and it looks like ACTA is heading that way too. We have to break free from these chains before it is too late. We are still in time.